While well-tested at solar system scales, Newtonian gravity exhibits anomalies at larger scales and accelerations below $$10^{-9} m/s^2$$. Although Yukawa-like modifications can reconcile these anomalies with general relativity up to solar system scales, they face challenges at galactic scales. Notably, gravitational anomalies at accelerations $$\le 10^{-9} m/s^2$$ for separations down to $$50\, \mu$$ m remain undetected experimentally. This paper presents a mathematical framework for Yukawa modification of Newtonian gravity in weak acceleration regimes $$(\le 10^{-9} m/s^2)$$ and small separations ( $$\le (...) 30 \, \mu$$ m) using an extended space model with an extra dimension. This model suggests a vacuum-sourced inertia effect from peculiar photons, with implications for the Mach principle. These photons’ entanglement scale ( $$\le 30\, \mu$$ m) hints at the possibility of longer-range photon entanglement via analytic continuation, opening new avenues for research in quantum gravity and cosmology. (shrink)

The NIH-funded Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies® (BRAIN) Initiative has led to significant advances in what we know about the functions and capacities of the brain. This multifaceted and expansive effort supports a range of experimentation from cells to circuits, and its outputs promise to ease suffering from various neurological injuries, diseases, and neuropsychiatric conditions. At the midway point of the 10-year BRAIN Initiative, we pause to consider how these studies, and neuroscience research more broadly, may bear on human (...) characteristics and moral concepts such as identity, agency, and others. This midway point also offers us an opportunity to evaluate the sociology and impacts of BRAIN Initiative-funded investigations to ensure that ethical standards of fairness and justice pervade the scientific process itself. Neuroethics inquiry provides a mechanism to invite relevant, novel expertise from the wide array of disciplines that intersect with biomedicine in neuroscience research. As the BRAIN Initiative and the broader field of neuroscience proceed, neuroethics serves as a central component of neuroscience inquiry to i) foster necessary and beneficial collaborations for responsible discovery; ii) ensure a rigorous, reproducible, and representative neuroscience research process; and iii) explore the unique nature of study of the human brain through accurate and representative models of its function and dysfunction. (shrink)

We were delighted to be asked by the editors of the American Journal of Bioethics to provide this editorial in response to Dr. Ariane Lewis’s paper “An Overview of Ethical Issues Raised by Medicole...

Background Discrimination in health care is an international challenge and a serious obstacle to justice and equality in health. Research objective The purpose of this study was to design a grounded theory of discrimination in health care based on the experiences and perceptions of Iranian healthcare providers and patients. Research design This qualitative study was conducted using by the grounded theory method. Participants and research context Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with 18 healthcare providers including 11 nurses, two physicians, (...) two nurse’s assistants, and three patients in two general hospitals in Tehran, Iran. Participants were selected through purposeful sampling and analyzed simultaneously using the Corbin and Strauss (2015) approach. Ethical considerations The study was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of the University of Social Welfare and Rehabilitation Sciences (Ethics code: IR.USWR.REC.1398.023). Also, after explaining the objectives of the study, all the participants completed and signed the written consent form. Findings The “culture of discrimination” was the study’s core category, reflecting the nature of discrimination in health care. The theory of “culture of discrimination in health care” is the result of five main categories: “individual social stimuli,” “culture of discrimination,” “unintentional discrimination,” “conflict with discrimination,” and “dissatisfaction with discriminatory behavior.” These categories cover the underlying factors, strategies, and outcomes of the discrimination process in health care. Discussion The results of the study showed that nurses and other health care providers experience unintentional discrimination. Unintentional discrimination refers to discriminatory behaviors and practices of health care providers. Conclusion The theory of culture of discrimination in health care can be used as a practical guide to describe and understand the role of health care providers, especially nurses. Further studies with a quantitative approach to applying this theory in medical settings are recommended. (shrink)

Along the same line as that in Ono (Ann Pure Appl Logic 161:246–250, 2009), a proof-theoretic approach to Glivenko theorems is developed here for substructural predicate logics relative not only to classical predicate logic but also to arbitrary involutive substructural predicate logics over intuitionistic linear predicate logic without exponentials QFLe. It is shown that there exists the weakest logic over QFLe among substructural predicate logics for which the Glivenko theorem holds. Negative translations of substructural predicate logics are studied by using (...) the same approach. First, a negative translation, called extended Kuroda translation is introduced. Then a translation result of an arbitrary involutive substructural predicate logics over QFLe is shown, and the existence of the weakest logic is proved among such logics for which the extended Kuroda translation works. They are obtained by a slight modification of the proof of the Glivenko theorem. Relations of our extended Kuroda translation with other standard negative translations will be discussed. Lastly, algebraic aspects of these results will be mentioned briefly. In this way, a clear and comprehensive understanding of Glivenko theorems and negative translations will be obtained from a substructural viewpoint. (shrink)

Human rights may feel self-apparent to us, but less than 80 years ago, one of the most advanced countries at the time acted based on an utterly contrary ideology. The view of social Darwinism that abandoned the idea of the intrinsic value of human lives instead argued that oppression of the inferior is not only inevitable but desirable. One of the many catastrophic outcomes is the medical data obtained from inhuman experiments at concentration camps. Ethical uncertainty over whether the resulting (...) insights should be a part of the medical literature provides a chance to consider the seemingly irreplaceable social construct of human dignity. Would any medical benefit justify the utilization of this illicit data? Would utilization even qualify as an insult to the dignity of the exploited subjects, or is this a question about intersubjective meaning? This work discusses the wisdom in blind adherence to human dignity, the possibility of retrospective insults, moral complicity, contrary viewpoints, and possible resolutions. (shrink)

In addition to healthcare concerns, the COVID-19 pandemic has also brought about ethical challenges. This study aimed to shed light on one of the ethical questions regarding medical students’ moral sensitivities and ethical responsibilities during the pandemic. An anonymous online questionnaire was administered to Iranian stagers (medical students in their first two years of clinical course) and interns about their demographics and beliefs about ethical responsibilities during the pandemic. The data were gathered in two phases; before and after COVID-19 vaccination. (...) SPSS software 18 was used for the statistical analysis. At the end of the study, 95 and 264 students participated in the first and second phases, respectively. The mean moral sensitivity score was 38.11 ± 4.88 in the first phase and 35.39 ± 4.9 in the second phase (p-value < 0.001). The majority of students believed it was their ethical responsibility to contribute to the management of patients during the pandemic at both phases (before vaccination: 63%, and after vaccination: 71%, p-value = 0.15). Age, sex, worriedness, and ethical responsibility were related to moral sensitivity in the first phase. Age, sex, being worried about contracting COVID-19, worriedness, usefulness, and ethical responsibility had a relationship with moral sensitivity scores. The moral sensitivity of medical students was related to their belief in ethical responsibility before and after vaccination. There was no difference in moral sensitivity between those who had passed the ethical course and those who had not. It is suggested to express the practical aspects of medical ethics education as well as to promote the moral reasoning of students during ethics courses. (shrink)

Researchers studying human behavioral genetics have made significant scientific progress in enhancing our understanding of the relative contributions of genetics and the environment in observed variations in human behavior. Quickly outpacing the advances in the science are its applications in the criminal justice system. Already, human behavioral genetics research has been introduced in the U.S. criminal justice system, and its use will only become more prevalent. This essay discusses the recent historical use of behavioral genetics in criminal cases, recent advances (...) in two gene variants of particular interest in the criminal law, MAOA and SLC6A4, the recent expert testimony on behalf of criminal defendants with respect to these two gene variants, and the future direction of behavioral genetics evidence in criminal cases. (shrink)

In the new era of technology, internet turns to be one of the main sources of information, since it is considered cheaper and easier to use. Hence in tourism, two main pull factors influencing potential tourist to visit a destination are recognized as nature and culture which a destination offers. The acceptance of culture as one of the important factors in tourists’ motivation, heritage sites become popular in many countries especially those which are nominated as world heritage sites. This paper (...) is to analyze the condition of available online information about George Town world heritage spots (Penang, Malaysia). As far as heritage is one of the products of tourism and tourism, on the other hand, is a big help for sustainability of heritage sites, providing sufficient information about tourism heritage sites as a promotional key is very important. Top ten tourism websites were chosen and content analysis was performed to find the current situation of those websites. By recognizing heritage as tangible and intangible, the result shows that although the intangible heritages need more concern in sustainability matter, but the information about them are not as complete as the tangible ones. Lack of proper information was seen in most websites and the focus of information was more on tangible heritage and among intangible heritage, the main focus was on food. To support the result of analysis, in-dept interviews were conducted by couple of heritage offices in the city. The main reason behind the lack of sufficient information about intangible heritage seems to be the lack of complete list of them and moreover, promoting this division of heritage needs negotiation with the local residence involving in those activities. The paper suggests providing a complete list of George Town world heritage as far as some of them are disappearing lately, and keeping this valuable world heritage sustainable for next generation needs detailed study and completing the list as soon as possible. In this regard those intangible heritages which are in hazard of disappearing can be maintained by the effort of key holders of the field. Moreover, providing the mentioned list helps the information providers, especially related websites to focus equally on tangible and intangible George Town world heritage. (shrink)

The article examines the cultivation ideals that have emerged in public debates surrounding Moderna Museet – the Swedish Museum of Modern Art – between 1972 and 2006, with a focus on how these ideals have been shaped by evolving societal and cultural policy expectations. The concept of cultivation ideals [kultiveringsideal] refers to the perceived roles that the museum should play in cultivating specific qualities in its visitors, as well as the means through which this cultivation should be achieved. Throughout the (...) debates, six distinct cultivation ideals emerged. Rather than being fixed or universally agreed upon, the cultivation ideals emerging from the public debate on Moderna Museet have been continuously reshaped throughout the museum’s history. However, although the ideals have shifted, they all emphasise the modern art museum’s role as a cultivating institution. (shrink)

This article presents a discussion with Australian Iranian artist Hoda Afshar, in which we explore some of the social and political contexts of contemporary creative practice from a Deleuzian perspective. Our discussion references work from across Afshar’s career, though we focus on a recent exhibition ( The Fold) staged as part of the National Gallery of Victoria’s Triennial in Naarm (Melbourne), Australia, in late 2023 into 2024. This exhibition featured works partially derived from Afshar’s investigations in the archive of (...) the French psychiatrist and photographer Gaëtan Gatian de Clérambault (1872–1934), which included thousands of images of veiled Islamic women and men taken in Morocco in the 1920s. Employing diverse visual strategies and artistic techniques to restage these images, The Fold invites the viewer to question the political and aesthetic representation of marginal subjects, the colonist’s fascination with the veil, and the contemporary resonances these questions evoke. The title of Afshar’s exhibition has obvious Deleuzian echoes, though we also draw out wider references taken from Deleuze’s discussion of the ‘people to come’, including some of his own brief references to de Clérambault’s work in The Fold: Leibniz and the Baroque. We preface this discussion by way of a brief introduction to Afshar’s practice, including relevant aspects of her training and exhibition history, while also touching upon the broader social and political interests that often feature in her work. We then explore the key resonances between these interests and our shared readings of the work of Deleuze and Guattari. We return to these themes in a brief conclusion where we offer some final thoughts on the contours of a Deleuzian creative life. (shrink)

Ivory is one the precious and sought materials in most of the ancient Near Eastern civilizations in Mesopotamia, the Levant and ancient Egypt, and man has excelled in using ivory since ancient times, to produce carved and polished pieces of great artistic value, and ivory carvings are of great importance as one of the materials that show us the amount of Luxury in the Assyrian royal court, as they are included in the inlay of furniture, thrones, chairs and tables, as (...) well as decorative boxes, scales, combs and others, and the Assyrian kings paid great attention to this material and became one of the faces of art in the modern Assyrian era. (shrink)

This paper describes the central role of peace in the Bahá’í Faith. For Bahá’ís, peace begins at the level of the individual and migrates outward to the community, nation, and the world. The article explains how the Bahá’í Faith outlines a covenant – an agreement between Bahá’ís and between Bahá’ís and the world – made manifest in an Administrative Order in which the ascertainment of peaceful principles and the establishment of peaceful practices are developed. The paper explains how concepts like (...) the oneness of humanity, the symbiosis between science and religion, and the unity of religion and God combine with ideals like justice, equality, and consultation to form a Bahá’í approach to the creation and maintenance of peace. Integration and disintegration – broad-structured, dynamic effects that shift societies and the world – will help to usher in two main aspects of a present and future Bahá’í order: the Lesser Peace and the Most Great Peace. The Lesser Peace is defined by the efforts of nations and international actors to form a broad-based, global peace. The Most Great Peace describes the arrival and ascendance of the Bahá’í Administrative Order, which will result in an unprecedented level of global peace and security. (shrink)

In diesem Aufsatz wird der Begriff „Technik“ bis zu seinem griechischen Ursprung, τέχνη, zurückverfolgt. Wir erkennen seine erste Bedeutung als eine geistige Aktivität, die auf Wissen und systematischer Erforschung beruht und auf die Schaffung eines technischen oder eines moralischen Werks abzielt. Im vorliegenden Aufsatz wird argumentiert, dass der Hauptunterschied zwischen der Technik, wie sie von den klassischen griechischen Philosophen gesehen wurde, und unserer heutigen Technik, in dem Ziel liegen könnte, welches der Mensch für die Technik setzt.

Emotion recognition systems have been of interest to researchers for a long time. Improvement of brain-computer interface systems currently makes EEG-based emotion recognition more attractive. These systems try to develop strategies that are capable of recognizing emotions automatically. There are many approaches due to different features extractions methods for analyzing the EEG signals. Still, Since the brain is supposed to be a nonlinear dynamic system, it seems a nonlinear dynamic analysis tool may yield more convenient results. A novel approach in (...) Symbolic Time Series Analysis for signal phase space partitioning and symbol sequence generating is introduced in this study. Symbolic sequences have been produced by means of spherical partitioning of phase space; then, they have been compared and classified based on the maximum value of a similarity index. Obtaining the automatic independent emotion recognition EEG-based system has always been discussed because of the subject-dependent content of emotion. Here we introduce a subject-independent protocol to solve the generalization problem. To prove our method’s effectiveness, we used the DEAP dataset, and we reached an accuracy of 98.44% for classifying happiness from sadness. It was 93.75% for three, 89.06% for four, and 85% for five emotional groups. According to these results, it is evident that our subject-independent method is more accurate rather than many other methods in different studies. In addition, a subject-independent method has been proposed in this study, which is not considered in most of the studies in this field. (shrink)

carrington places race and racism at the center of his densely written analysis of science fiction, fantasy, utopia, and other forms of popular culture. He moves easily between a broad range of forms, which include memoirs, television series, comic books, novels, novelizations, fandom and fanzines, and short fiction and fiction circulated on the Internet. Popular culture helps us to construct notions of identity and race, and for carrington many constituent groups, notably fans, develop its key concepts and values.Speculative fiction is (...) for carrington a framework that links these various forms of popular culture. Here, SF is a genre different from literature, as it is situated closer to, and is more deeply... (shrink)

Building design based on principles of architecture in harmony with the climate of each region, in addition to creating thermal comfort in building interiors, reduces fuel consumption and more important it will demonstrate a clean and green environment. This issue becomes more intense in some geological areas like Khoramshahr in Iran, which has a warm, tropical and critical climate, since if this issue is not taking into account, using air conditioning utilities would be necessary in most periods of the year. (...) According to the studies, buildings in harmony with the climate of Khorramshahr will be able to adjust the thermal conditions of their interiors naturally to the human comfort level in 82 % of cases during a year. In such a building, only in 18% of cases during a year, using mechanical systems for cooling the internal spaces is essential. The main problem in this climate is cooling the interior spaces in hot season but in winter these spaces can be kept warm at the level of comfort by using passive or active solar energy or by using simple thermal devices in some situations. This all issues give a good answer to the rules of green architecture which they were carried out by traditional architects as well. Research method of this paper is mainly descriptive and analytical which study the traditional housing of Khorramshahr has been considered for achieving climatic design principles. The results of the studies show that the most problematic issue in this climate is the dry and dusty wind in summer. Since in winter, using solar cooling systems perform a situation that restricts unfavorable climatic factors. In this paper both of above mentioned issues were solved through some guidelines in the area of green architecture. (shrink)

Ovaj se rad bavi Lévi-Straussovim proučavanjem »mitskog« mišljenja u Divljoj misli, kako mnogi tvrde, njegovom najznačajnijem djelu. »Divlja« misao je logika uma svojstvena svakom čovjeku, a kao takva određuje sva ljudska društva. Antropologija, koja se bavi proučavanjima institucija i običaja, treba zahvatiti nesvjesnu strukturu na kojoj oni počivaju. Svojom nesvjesnom djelatnošću um nameće oblik sadržaju. Jedna od temeljnih pretpostavki jest da su ti oblici isti kod svih umova – davnih i suvremenih, primitivnih i civiliziranih – i ona nalaže da se (...) otkrije nesvjesna struktura na kojoj počiva svaka institucija i običaj.This essay deals with explorations of the ‘mythical’ thought in Lévi-Strauss’s most significant book – The savage mind. ‘Savage’ thought is logic of mind which is inherent to every human being, and as such it determines all human societies. Anthropology should reveal unconscious structure in which institutions and customs are rooted. Unconscious activity of mind dictates forms to the content. One of the key assumptions is that those forms are basically the same to all people – ancient and contemporary, primitive and civilized – and it calls for revelation of unconscious structure which determines every institution and custom. (shrink)

The prevailing discourse around AI ethics lacks the language and formalism necessary to capture the diverse ethical concerns that emerge when AI systems interact with individuals. Drawing on Sen and Nussbaum’s capability approach, we present a framework formalizing a network of ethical concepts and entitlements necessary for AI systems to confer meaningful benefit or assistance to stakeholders. Such systems enhance stakeholders’ ability to advance their life plans and well-being while upholding their fundamental rights. We characterize two necessary conditions for morally (...) permissible interactions between AI systems and those impacted by their functioning, and two sufficient conditions for realizing the ideal of meaningful benefit. We then contrast this ideal with several salient failure modes, namely, forms of social interactions that constitute unjustified paternalism, coercion, deception, exploitation and domination. The proliferation of incidents involving AI in high-stakes domains underscores the gravity of these issues and the imperative to take an ethics-led approach to AI systems from their inception. (shrink)

Cross-cultural sex differences in mobility and harm avoidance have been widely reported, often emphasizing fitness benefits of long-distance travel for males and high costs for females. Data emerging from adults in small-scale societies, however, are challenging the assumption that female mobility is restricted during reproduction. Such findings warrant further exploration of the ontogeny of mobility. Here, using a combination of machine-learning, mixed-effects linear regression, and GIS mapping, we analyze range size, daily distance traveled, and harm avoidance among Hadza foragers during (...) middle childhood and adolescence. Distance traveled increased with age and, while male adolescents had the longest daily ranges, average daily distance traveled by each sex was similar. We found few age- or sex-related patterns in harm-avoidant responses and a high degree of individual variation. When queried on the same issues, children and their parents were often in alignment as to expectations pertaining to harm avoidance, and siblings tended to behave in similar ways. To the extent that sex differences in mobility did emerge, they were associated with ecological differences in physical threats associated with sex-specific foraging behaviors. Further, we found no strong association between harm avoidance and mobility. Young Hadza foragers of both sexes are highly mobile, regardless of how harm avoidant they are. Taken together, our findings indicate that the causal arrows between harm avoidance and mobility must be evaluated in ecologically specific frameworks where cultural expectations of juvenile mobility can be contextualized. (shrink)

Source: Author: Mohsen Mehrara, Yazdan Gudarzi Farahani, Farzan Faninam, Abbas Rezazadeh Karsalari This paper examines the relationship between stock market index and macroeconomic policies on Iran's economy using quarterly data in the period 1999-2013. This study employed cointegration test and vector autoregressive models to examine relationships between the stock market index and the macroeconomic variables. The empirical results reveal that a positive money shock can increase stocks return. According to impulse responses, the government expenditure had a slight impact on (...) stocks return in the short term. But the government expenditure has a positive effect on exchange index in long run. Also the effect of taxes on the stock's price index is negative, so that it reaches its maximum level after the third lag and then alleviates. The GDP shock has positive effect on the stock's price index. Increase in production level leads to increase in earnings and profitability, leading to a positive response from stocks index. Therefore the results showed that the macroeconomic variables such as inflation, exchange rate and GDP have significant effects on Tehran exchange price index. So the hypothesis that the improving economic factors can have a useful role in the booming capital market is confirmed. Also the effect of fiscal policy factors such as tax revenues and government expenditures is more than monetary policy factors on stock returns. ]]>. (shrink)

Background: Error communication includes both reporting errors to superiors and disclosing their consequences to patients and their families. It significantly contributes to error prevention and safety improvement. Yet, some errors in intensive care units are not communicated. Objectives: The aim of the present study was to explore factors affecting error communication in intensive care units. Design and participants: This qualitative study was conducted in 2019. Participants were 17 critical care nurses purposively recruited from the intensive care units of 2 public (...) hospitals affiliated to Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran. Data were collected through in-depth semi-structured interviews and were analyzed through the conventional content analysis method proposed by Graneheim and Lundman. Ethical considerations: The Ethics Committee of Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran approved the study (code: IR.IUMS. REC.1397.792). Participants were informed about the study aim and methods and were ensured of data confidentiality. They were free to withdraw from the study at will. Written informed consent was obtained from all of them. Findings: Factors affecting error communication in intensive care units fell into four main categories, namely the culture of error communication (subcategories were error communication organizational atmosphere, clarity of processes and guidelines, managerial support for nurses, and learning organization), the consequences of errors for nurses and nursing (subcategories were fear over being stigmatized as incompetent, fear over punishment, and fear over negative judgments about nursing), the consequences of errors for patients (subcategories were monitoring the effects of errors on patients and predicting the effects of errors on patients), and ethical and professional characteristics (subcategories were ethical characteristics and inter-professional relationships). Discussion: The results of this study show many factors affect error communication, some facilitate and some prohibit it. Organizational factors such as the culture of error communication and the consequences of error communication for the nurse and the patient, as well as individual and professional characteristics, including ethical characteristics and interprofessional relationship, influence this process. Conclusion: Errors confront nurses with ethical challenges and make them assess error consequences and then, communicate or hide them based on the results of their assessments. Health authorities can promote nurses’ error communication through creating a supportive environment for them, developing clear error communication processes and guidelines, and providing them with education about the principles of ethical practice. (shrink)

Nursing is a moral profession requiring virtues such as compassion and integrity to deliver ethical care amid complex challenges like moral distress. Despite known influences on moral development, nursing students’ own perceptions of factors shaping their moral character remain underexplored. Therefore, this study aimed to explore nursing students’ perceptions of the factors contributing to the development of moral character. A qualitative descriptive study and conventional content analysis was used. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 16 purposive-sampled nursing students (Bachelor’s and Master’s) (...) at Hormozgan University of Medical Sciences, Iran, between June and August 2025. Data were analysed following Graneheim and Lundman’s approach until data saturation (meaning saturation) was achieved. Trustworthiness was ensured through credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability strategies, guided by the COREQ checklist. Four overarching themes emerged, encompassing 14 sub-themes: (1) inner motivations and values (four sub-themes: intrinsic motivation, personal/religious beliefs, psychological capital, self-reflection); (2) relational dynamics and communication (three sub-themes: role modeling, peer support, family/community influences); (3) moral learning in practice (three sub-themes: formal ethics education, staged clinical experiences, simulation training); and (4) systemic and organizational influences (four sub-themes: university culture, clinical ethical climate, professional norms, resource availability). Moral character development is a dynamic, multifaceted process shaped by personal conviction, social relationships, structured learning, and institutional contexts, underscoring the ethical significance of virtues like resilience and integrity in navigating moral distress. In this Iranian cohort, religious values and relational role models were particularly salient. These findings inform bioethics curricula and policy to strengthen moral resilience among nursing students, preparing them for ethical practice amid complex healthcare challenges. (shrink)

During the early Cambrian period metazoan life forms diverged at an accelerated rate to occupy multiple ecological niches on earth. A variety of explanations have been proposed to address this major evolutionary phenomenon termed the “Cambrian explosion.” While most hypotheses address environmental, developmental, and ecological factors that facilitated evolutionary innovations, the biological basis for accelerated emergence of species diversity in the Cambrian period remains largely conjectural. Herein, we posit that morphogenesis by self‐organization enables the uncoupling of genomic mutational landscape from (...) phenotypic diversification. Evidence is provided for a two‐tiered interpretation of genomic changes in metazoan animals wherein mutations not only impact upon function of individual cells, but also alter the self‐organization outcome during developmental morphogenesis. We provide evidence that the morphological impacts of mutations on self‐organization could remain repressed if associated with an unmet negative energetic cost. We posit that accelerated morphological diversification in transition to the Cambrian period has occurred by emergence of dormant (i.e., reserved) morphological novelties whose molecular underpinnings were seeded in the Precambrian period. (shrink)

The management control system aids administrators in guiding a business toward its organizational plans; as a result, management control is primarily concerned with the execution of the plan and plans. Financial and nonfinancial criteria are used to create management control systems. The financial element focuses on net income, earnings, and other financial metrics. The two components of leadership strategy in this study are cost and differentiation, which highlight the strategy of differentiation in attaining higher quality due to the robust strategy’s (...) attention on a particular area of the company. In this study, we presented a novel method named deep interaction neural network to predict the performance of the manufacturing companies based on their leading competitors using features cost leadership and differentiation strategies. Moreover, the management control system is classified into two financial and nonfinancial factors based on machine learning methods. Based on the results, the presented factors can accurately estimate the company’s performance based on management control criteria with a 93.48% R-square. Moreover, it can be seen that the DT method is presented with higher classification performance values. (shrink)

John Grundy, Tanjila Kanij, Rashina Hoda, Hourieh Khalajzadeh, Anuradha Madugalla, and Jennifer McIntosh.

A correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12110-021-09403-x.

For the average person, genetic testing has two very different faces. The rise of genetic testing is often promoted as the democratization of genetics by enabling individuals to gain insights into their unique makeup. At the same time, many have raised concerns that genetic testing and sequencing reveal intensely personal and private information. As these technologies become increasingly available as consumer products, the ethical, legal, and regulatory challenges presented by genomics are ever looming. Assembling multidisciplinary experts, this volume evaluates the (...) different models used to deliver consumer genetics and considers a number of key questions: How should we mediate privacy and other ethical concerns around genetic databases? Does aggregating data from genetic testing turn people into products by commercializing their data? How might this data reduce or exacerbate existing healthcare disparities? Contributing authors also provide guidance on protecting consumer privacy and safety while promoting innovation. (shrink)

The rise of neurotechnologies, especially in combination with artificial intelligence (AI)-based methods for brain data analytics, has given rise to concerns around the protection of mental privacy, mental integrity and cognitive liberty – often framed as “neurorights” in ethical, legal, and policy discussions. Several states are now looking at including neurorights into their constitutional legal frameworks, and international institutions and organizations, such as UNESCO and the Council of Europe, are taking an active interest in developing international policy and governance guidelines (...) on this issue. However, in many discussions of neurorights the philosophical assumptions, ethical frames of reference and legal interpretation are either not made explicit or conflict with each other. The aim of this multidisciplinary work is to provide conceptual, ethical, and legal foundations that allow for facilitating a common minimalist conceptual understanding of mental privacy, mental integrity, and cognitive liberty to facilitate scholarly, legal, and policy discussions. (shrink)

Background and objectivesThe study of brain functional connectivity alterations in children with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder has been the subject of considerable investigation, but the biological mechanisms underlying these changes remain poorly understood. Here, we aim to investigate the brain alterations in patients with ADHD and Typical Development children and accurately classify ADHD children from TD controls using the graph-theoretical measures obtained from resting-state fMRI.Materials and methodsWe investigated the performances of rs-fMRI data for classifying drug-naive children with ADHD from TD controls. Fifty (...) six drug-naive ADHD children and 56 age matched TD controls were included in this study. The graph measures extracted from rs-fMRI functional connectivity were used as features. Extracted network-based features were fed to the RFE feature selection algorithm to select the most discriminating subset of features. We trained and tested Support Vector Machine, Random Forest, and Gradient Boosting using Peking center data from ADHD-200 database to classify ADHD and TD children using discriminative features. In addition to the machine learning approach, the statistical analysis was conducted on graph measures to discover the differences in the brain network of patients with ADHD.ResultsAn accuracy of 78.2% was achieved for classifying drug-naive children with ADHD from TD controls employing the optimal features and the GB classifier. We also performed a hub node analysis and found that the number of hubs in TD controls and ADHD children were 8 and 5, respectively, indicating that children with ADHD have disturbance of critical communication regions in their brain network. The findings of this study provide insight into the neurophysiological mechanisms underlying ADHD.ConclusionPattern recognition and graph measures of the brain networks, based on the rs-fMRI data, can efficiently assist in the classification of ADHD children from TD controls. (shrink)

As the twenty-first century is characterised by a growing awareness of climate change and environmental degradation, the financial sector has started to channel funds into more sustainable energy investments. Therefore, this chapter provides a comprehensive and engaging exploration of how the financial sector, along with financial institutions and financial innovation, can be a powerful ally in the pursuit of energy justice. Furthermore, this chapter presents how financial institutions, instruments, and innovations play a crucial role in shaping sustainable energy systems. Therefore, (...) policymakers, financial institutions, and energy companies need to work together to create regulatory frameworks and investment strategies for the global energy transition. This will not only fulfil economic or environmental but also moral requirements to ensure a just and sustainable future for all generations. (shrink)